


I Gave My Love a Cherry

by sam_ptarmigan



Series: Which Had No Stone [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Brain Injury, Courtship, Hunters & Hunting, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 01:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1325908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sam_ptarmigan/pseuds/sam_ptarmigan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is little mercy in being the one who remembers, but what is the quest to reclaim Erebor if not a long shot at starting anew?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Gave My Love a Cherry

**Author's Note:**

> Written for lianna-snow to benefit Typhoon Haiyan relief. Contains references to attempted suicide and descriptions of hunting and butchering.

He remembers the very first time he set eyes upon Bifur.

It was springtime, cold and wet. He was returning home from a visit with his kinsmen, and if he were the romantic sort, he might say that some portent or premonition made him halt at that certain moment in that certain spot in the market square. In all honesty, however, he was only hungry. He dawdled, the rain dripping from his hood, and mulled over whether to spoil his dinner with a bag of roasted nuts or with a mutton pie. That was when he caught sight of him: a fellow weaving through the crowd.

_Ah_ , Dwalin thought. That was all: _ah_.

There was nothing at all about the fellow that ought to have caught his eye, let alone held it for so long. He was ordinary-looking, his hair black and his beard full. He was neither very tall nor very short, neither very stout nor very thin. They were about the same age, but to Dwalin's recollection they had never been introduced. The only thing of note about him was that he was walking with his head down, holding some bit of crafting in his hands—copper wire and wood—and he worked on it ceaselessly, manoeuvring between the stalls and traffic without ever once glancing up.

Dwalin watched him for a few moments, waiting to see if he was going to crash into anything. When no scene looked to be forthcoming, he shrugged and bought a pie. He sat on a bench and ate, and then he went home for dinner. He played cards with Balin well into the evening. Then, when the thought of the fellow refused to leave him, he finally asked his brother, by the by, if he happened to know the name or kin of a small-crafter, yea tall, black-haired, full-bearded, an absent-minded sort of fellow. 

That night, lying in his bed, he turned the name over in his head.

Bifur son of Ozur. Bifur. Bifur. He liked it.

He remembers the way his blood burned the first time they went hunting together.

It was autumn. The air was sharp, and the woods were grey and golden. Pigsticking—he hadn't expected it from a starry-eyed toymaker, but there they were, armed to the teeth, breath steaming in the early morning air. Bifur's spear flashed when it caught the pale sunbeams that streamed through the half-bare canopy, and Dwalin had to stretch his legs to keep pace with him. This was no leisurely stag hunt, no excuse to gab and boast and drink ale for half the day. 

Leaves crunched beneath his feet. His heart pattered like a drum. The bay-dog called to them, barking excitedly, startling birds into flight. The catch-dog ran at Dwalin's side, the two of them chasing Bifur's shadow.

What followed was a clash of bone and steel-tipped iron. The boar was a big tusky bastard looking for a fight. Three hundred pounds if it was an ounce, it crashed through the undergrowth, charging the bay-dog, which eluded it with a merry grin. Bifur and the catch-dog closed in, one as quick as the other, teeth partnered with spear, and Dwalin too dived into the fray with net and knife, laughing with the fierce joy of the hunt as sharp hooves drove back into his stomach.

The end was quick and clean.

He knew for certain that Bifur was his one and only when he watched him butcher the boar. Off came Bifur's gloves, his coat, his shirt. He hauled the beast up by himself, the muscles in his arms straining as he pulled the rope over a stout tree branch. He was the old-fashioned sort ( _Balin will approve_ , Dwalin thought dreamily), and he would take no meat that was not cut and bled to the letter of the law.

Salt. Prayers. A wickedly sharp knife. 

Dwalin sat in the grass with his hands upon his knees, held rapt as the blood flowed to the thirsty earth.

The dogs lay with him, panting. He scratched behind a half-cocked ear as Bifur sang the blessing. Dwalin was accustomed to the sound of Khuzdul between stone walls. His mother's stories in the nursery. Lessons in the schoolroom. Toasts and blessings in the hall. To hear those words Above, brave and holy in the open air, made his face go hot. He did not want Bifur to stop, wishing to listen a little longer, and yet he prayed too, in thoughts in the common tongue, that Bifur would turn and look at him. That he would see how Dwalin had won his dogs' favour and think well of him.

The tenderloin was still warm from the carcass when it was put over the fire. It was split four ways between hunters and hounds, and Dwalin chewed the meat slowly, having never tasted anything better in his life. He felt a sudden kinship with the boar: gutted open by tender hands.

He remembers the first time they lay together.

It was winter, and they had hidden themselves away in the cramped space of Bifur's private room. There was a little coal fire in the grate, and they warmed their hands and feet in front of it as, somewhere beyond and above the walls, the snow fell heavily. They had talked awhile, idly, about their kinfolk and the weather, but now all was quiet. He liked that, the easy silence. He wasn't much of a talker, and neither was Bifur.

At first he didn't even notice when Bifur's hand settled atop his knee. The warm, comfortable weight of it had stolen up on him, and when he finally looked down, there it was, and there it had seemingly been for some time. He looked at Bifur, who was gazing into the fire, but not with the faraway expression he wore when he was working. This was the patient watchfulness that Dwalin knew from the woods. Bifur down in the dry leaves, spear in hand. Bifur scenting the air and testing which way the wind blew. 

Dwalin carefully put an arm around Bifur's waist. Beneath his hand, he felt a slow breath release. _Yes_ , Dwalin thought, his heart beginning to pound. _Yes_.

It was clumsy, the first time. They did not entirely know what they were doing. Or at least Dwalin didn't, not beyond the usual tavern songs and one miserably awkward talk with his brother many years before. They fumbled, knocking their knees together, getting tangled in their shirts. He didn't know where to put his legs, but his hands wanted to be everywhere at once. It should have lasted longer, he knew that now and he'd had an inkling even then.

But there they were, after, mussed and stunned and half-embarrassed. His knee between Bifur's thighs. Bifur spitting out a lock of his hair. There they were, and it was more than fine.

" _Hammered thumbs make masters' hands_ ," Bifur quoted loftily in Khuzdul and then laughed, low and lustily.

They tried it again a half-hour later, and it was even better. The fire burned out, leaving the room warm and stuffy. The smell of sweat. The taste of salt on his lips.

These are the things that Dwalin remembers, even when he wishes he didn't.

"Here," he says, joining Bifur on a flimsy, worrisome balcony in Rivendell and taking out his pipe. "It's the last of the good leaf."

The night is cool and quiet. The silence should be a relief, but it isn't. Elves walk too softly for his liking.

" _Thank you_ ," Bifur signs. He's forgotten himself a time or two and drives Thorin to consternation by speaking the old tongue to the hobbit, but here he seems mindful of sharp, pointed ears.

" _You're welcome_ ," Dwalin signs back, the gesture at his hip and subtle.

Bifur smiles to see it. His smile hasn't changed, despite it all—a brief, crooked thing.

They pass the pipe back and forth as they did that night on the downs, as they had done on a hundred other nights before. Dwalin's stomach is unsettled, full of too many words he's been swallowing down since they set out on the road. _I've missed you_ , he wants to sign. Or maybe _I've missed this_. But if there is a way to say that in Iglishmêk, he never learned it. There is only _Where were you?_ and that isn't the right question. It wasn't Bifur who went away, not really.

A stream of smoke disappears in the air. Bifur hums rustily under his breath and gazes out across the valley. 

_Does it still hurt?_ Dwalin wants to ask that too. He can remember what Bifur's brow felt like, smooth and pressed against his own. Bifur wanted to die after it happened. No one said it, but he knew—he knows. Bifur wouldn't see him, wouldn't see anyone. He wandered away into the woods more than once, half-naked and unarmed, and his kinfolk pretended he had lost all sense and dragged him home again, but Dwalin knew what animals did when they were suffering. He understood the mercy of Mahal and he had stepped aside, for he would not burden Bifur with the knowledge that he would leave someone behind. 

" _Elves_ ," is all he finally signs, rolling his eyes in disdain for the house, and Bifur laughs.

It's a good sound. A hopeful sound. Here Bifur is, still alive, still crafting, if strangely. He is doted upon by his cousins and looks after them in turn, and Dwalin plays dice with Bofur more often than he should, and he loses more often than he should, sending the fool home with a little extra money for the household. 

That old thought returns: _Maybe it will be better in Erebor_. It seems to him that if everything would only hold still for a time...

Here he falters. Balin always says he thinks loudly enough to hear. A gnawing sound, he claims, like a dog worrying at a bone. Dwalin isn't like his brother, leaping from one idea to the next. His thoughts are placed between heavy stones and pressed until all the water has come forth from them. 

In Erebor, he thinks—more clearly this time—he would live in one place instead of selling his arm and travelling with lords and merchants. Thorin would be with him, and his brother, and he could see his mother's tomb again. All he could ask for beyond that was a place to lay his head when he was tired, and ale when he was thirsty, and a little money in his pocket. 

He isn't a fool. Perhaps there will be no healing, no magic, no miracle. Yet it seems to him that if Bifur is ever once again inclined to set his boots beside someone else's, Dwalin should be there. Settled and waiting, with a hearth of his own to sit by and time to share.

"Do you remember when we went boar hunting?" he asks.

If Bifur thinks the question strange, he gives no sign of it. He only shakes his head. " _Did we catch anything?_ "

"Aye," Dwalin says. "A great big one."

Bifur's eyes nearly focus, but then he twitches hard. His expression turns aggrieved. He frowns as though he's rummaging through the inside of his head for something that isn't there.

"It doesn't matter," Dwalin says, shrugging his shoulders. It’s a struggle, but he pries the words from his tongue. "I thought...we could go again. Someday."

For a long while, there is no answer. Dwalin's shoulders tense up in the silence. Then Bifur swallows audibly. 

" _I forget the words. The blessings. I forget them sometimes._ "

"Oh," Dwalin says. The cruelty of a thing like that quashes any relief he might have felt. He furrows his brow, thinking hard and carefully before venturing: "Balin would know, I'll wager. Or he’d know where to find them. He could teach me, and I could say them."

Two smiles in one night. That's more than worth a meal of moss in a draughty house.

" _It's been a long time since I've been hunting._ "

"Then we'll go," Dwalin says, as solemnly as he's sworn any promise in his life.

He hands the pipe back to Bifur for the last puff, watching the smile linger at the corner of his mouth, and if he were the romantic sort, he might like to think that they'll both remember this someday. A night in mid-summer, warm and quiet. A moment's peace, just the two of them, with the crescent moon shining like silver above them and home ahead of them, nearly in reach.


End file.
